Ian Morley

Ian Morley ISO (1904–1989) was an Australian mining engineer and administrator, who advocated for safe mining practices and reforms for the Australian mining industry.

Early life Ian Webster Morley was born on 20 March 1904 in Melbourne, Victoria, the only child of William Morley, a Methodist minister and his wife Grace Webster. He attended Trinity College (1910–1914) and Wesley college (1914–1921) in Melbourne before enrolling at the University of Melbourne. He took his Bachelor of Metallurgical Engineering degree in 1928 and Bachelor of Mining Engineering in 1929. He became general manager of Georgetown Gold Mines NL, Queensland from 1935 to 1936 and Mount Kasi Mines Ltd in Fiji in 1936. He was subsequently mine foreman at Wiluna Gold Mines Ltd, Western Australia in 1937 and inspector of mines at Kalgoorlie in 1938–1939. He became assistant state mining engineer in Queensland in 1939 rising to the position of state mining engineer and chief inspector of mines in 1940. He helped to introduce a uniform code of safe mining practice. He and mining executives such as Julius Kruttschnitt II and Malcolm Newman lobbied for the establishment of a mining engineering degree at the University of Queensland in 1949.

From 1950 mining expanded in Queensland and Morley helped formulate policies on oil and natural gas development, and the opening of bauxite, uranium, mineral sands and large open cut coalmines in the state. After Evelyn's death in 1948, Morley married Janet Innes in Brisbane in 1950. He died in Brisbane on 11 September 1989, and was survived by the son and daughter of his first marriage. An annual prize has been awarded in his name since 1990 at the University of Queensland.